WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

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◈ Paladin of a Ruined Order

Chapter 48

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Sewer

"Let's go in."

In the dead of night, Elbridge, Marcus, and the three clients, five people in all, slipped into the underground beneath Middlemarch.

As they moved through the tense silence, Elbridge asked a question.

"Michel-ssi. When does the sewer start?"

Milia's older brother, Michel, looked a little blank as he answered.

"We're walking through it right now."

"This is the sewer?"

"Well, yes... Wait, what kind of sewer were you imagining, El-ssi?"

"A narrow, filthy passage only wide enough to crawl through..."

Milia laughed.

"The sewer was that narrow?"

"...Yes."

"Then Solenion must really be less developed. Middlemarch's sewer looks like this. We've been walking through the sewer the whole time."

Solenion's sewer was only wide enough for one person to crawl through.

Even that was an impressive facility. Ordinary cities didn't even have sewers.

People living outside Solenion didn't even really know what a sewer was.

But Middlemarch's sewer was wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

There was even a ditch dug along the left side of the walkway, its depth impossible to judge, and all the waste flowed only through that ditch.

'...The scale of this sewer is beyond anything I imagined.'

Michel also laughed and asked Elbridge, "Then how did you think we'd move through the sewer, El-ssi? Crawl the whole time?"

"I wasn't thinking that. The sewer I imagined wasn't this wide, but it also wasn't this long. I thought we'd only crawl briefly at the necessary points and reach the destination."

"Haha! I can see why you'd think that."

Because Elbridge had shown a slightly awkward side, the stiff atmosphere relaxed a little.

He hadn't meant it that way, but it was a good outcome. People wore down quickly when silence dragged on.

The five of them stayed on edge, but every so often they exchanged a few quiet words as they moved.

Then Milia stopped the group.

"The underground barrier is here."

"There's a barrier in the sewer?"

Marcus looked around, searching for it.

Elbridge noticed it right away. A faint shimmer crossing the passage.

By its shape and color, though, it wasn't a particularly strong barrier.

"The sewer connects to all sorts of places in the city, so thieves could use it too. The Magic Tower set up barriers in the sewer to stop that."

"How do we get through it?"

"Marcus-ssi and El-ssi don't need to worry. If you have enough mana or divine power, you can pass through without setting off the alarm."

"...We can just walk through it? Then why put up a barrier like this?"

"It takes quite a bit of money to build up enough mana to break through a barrier. Someone with that kind of wealth wouldn't need to steal like a petty thief."

Led by Milia, everyone stepped over the barrier. As expected, nothing happened.

Milia then used magic to create a compass in the air.

"From here on, even I don't know the way, so we'll have to find it by direction alone. Follow me."

Their pace slowed a little.

Before the returning tension could press down on the group again, Elbridge spoke.

"Milia-ssi."

"Yes?"

"Until yesterday, when we met in front of the Mercenary Guild, I thought you wouldn't be coming into the sewer yourselves."

"Why not?"

"An escort request exists so you can leave the unpleasant work to other people. Why did you come in personally?"

Milia smiled, her eyes narrowing.

"Honestly, if we had confidence in our own abilities, we wouldn't have needed help from you and Marcus-ssi either. For secret work, isn't fewer people better?"

"That's true."

"But among the three of us, only Patrick has actual field experience. I only did research at the Magic Tower, and my brother only kept training and pouring in mana."

He had heard something similar yesterday too.

Still, Elbridge found Milia's explanation a little surprising.

Mages lacking real field experience had always been normal, but it was extremely rare for a knight to build up that much mana without combat experience.

"...In the end, the only one we could trust was Patrick, so rather than putting all the burden on him alone, it seemed better to have experienced mercenaries."

Elbridge judged calmly.

"That was wise."

The biggest problem with inexperienced people was that they couldn't accurately gauge their own limits and did reckless things.

But Milia and Michel clearly understood their limits and had found people to help them, so although they lacked experience, they weren't reckless.

"And there's one more reason."

"What is it?"

"If we got lost in the sewer and were caught, then while we were running away, you and Marcus would be the ones left to be caught instead."

"...?"

That was an unbelievably shameless thing to say.

Elbridge stared at Milia. Milia wore a mischievous expression.

"Like I said yesterday, our family has a lot of money. Even if we were caught in the sewer, there'd be no proof we'd committed some terrible crime, so we could pay to get you out."

"That's a brilliant joke, one that would be hard for a person with ordinary conscience to come up with."

"There's actually a little truth in it. Do you want to take this?"

Milia removed the necklace hanging around her neck and placed it in Elbridge's hand.

"Why are you giving me this?"

"If it looks like we're about to be caught, drop this necklace into the mud, then fish it back out. And if I say I hired someone to find it for me... wouldn't everyone believe that?"

"Well. The excuse itself is pretty convincing, just not something anyone would want to accept willingly..."

As Elbridge was lightly reprimanding Milia, his steps suddenly stopped.

"Wait."

"Hey, don't get angry. I wasn't really asking you to get caught. If something like that happens, it'd only be as an excuse..."

"Shh. Stop."

Once their footsteps and conversation stopped, only the slow sound of flowing water remained.

But Elbridge caught something strange mixed in with the water.

A rhythmic sound.

'Something is coming.'

Sound echoed through the sewer, making it hard to judge direction precisely.

But after listening a little more carefully, Elbridge confirmed the direction.

'Right side of the intersection ahead.'

But this wasn't the sound of shoe soles striking the floor.

It was the sound of someone stepping barefoot on the ground, or of hands touching the wet wall.

Was there anyone who would move barefoot through this enormous sewer?

No.

Elbridge kept his eyes forward and wrote on the sewer wall with his finger.

Demonic beasts. Three.

The atmosphere sank. Elbridge gestured toward the rear.

Understanding his signal, one person came over and stood beside him. Michel, Milia's older brother.

Elbridge mouthed, 'Take one.'

Michel nodded.

Splashing footsteps drew closer. Elbridge steadied his breathing and waited.

Then a demonic beast appeared from the right side of the intersection.

'Rats.'

Three rat-shaped demonic beasts. The mutation had started extremely recently. At this point, they were literally just rats with bigger bodies.

Elbridge waited for Michel to choose a target and move first.

Michel's eyes settled on the closest demonic beast. The moment Michel drew his sword, Elbridge kicked off the slightly slick ground and shot forward.

Elbridge's targets were the two rats Michel had not picked.

The sword swept through, but because the sewer was dark, there was no flash of steel.

A quiet, stealthy strike.

The two rat beasts didn't even have time to scream before their heads were severed.

"Squeak!"

But Michel was different. Instead of aiming for the target's neck, he drove his blade deep into its side.

It was definitely a fatal blow, but not one that would keep it from making a sound.

"Squeak, screech!"

The injured rat beast squealed and ran on instinct.

"...!"

Only then did Michel seem to realize his mistake, and he fumbled in panic.

If an inexperienced ally made a mistake, cleaning it up was the experienced person's job. Elbridge immediately threw his sword, slicing through the monster's hind leg.

Then Elbridge pulled his sword free from the rat beast's leg and leaped up, using its back as a springboard.

At the end, when Elbridge somersaulted through the air and swung his sword, the beast's head came off once again.

Marcus watched the move and merely looked unsurprised, as if it were only natural because it was Elbridge. But the three clients were different.

Milia didn't even know what she'd just seen, Michel looked flustered by Elbridge's movements, which had gone beyond his expectations, and Patrick's expression had hardened.

Elbridge used his foot to shove the rat carcasses into the ditch, then returned to the group and said, "Michel-ssi. That was a good attack. But right now, it would have been better to go for the neck and deal with it quietly."

Michel nodded dejectedly.

It would have been nice if that had been the end of it, but unfortunately the situation didn't end so cleanly.

They had heard the scream the demonic beast let out as it fled, and now signs of people were beginning to be felt from far away.

"People are coming."

The usually taciturn Patrick spoke.

"What should we do? Go back?"

Not just Patrick, but Milia and Michel were also looking at Elbridge.

Entrusting the decision to the one who had clearly shown skill was only natural.

"No need. Once the mages from the Magic Tower start moving, it'll be easier for us to slip through."

Milia and Patrick nodded again.

But Michel still looked grave. He seemed to think the situation had become tangled because of his mistake.

"Michel-ssi, this wasn't your fault. Those rats were going to come at us anyway, and we had no way to deal with their bodies, so we'd have been found sooner or later. It's better to actively create the situation like this and work our way deeper in."

Elbridge wiped his blade on the fur of the two rat beasts that hadn't fallen into the ditch yet, then shoved their bodies in as well.

The filth in the ditch didn't fully hide the demonic beasts' corpses, and even through the stench of sewage there was a faint smell of blood.

As Elbridge stood still, Marcus asked, "El. Shouldn't we hurry?"

"The sound is echoing, so they probably won't be able to pinpoint our location exactly. It's better to judge it properly and move."

Elbridge thought.

'Middlemarch's buildings were laid out in a grid. The sewer's layout was probably a grid too.'

'The footsteps are coming from the right. The research facility guarded by the mages is probably that way too.'

'We'll detour around the mages' approach and reach the destination.'

Elbridge turned around and walked calmly as he gave orders.

"Follow me. There's no need to rush. What's more important is not making noise. Keep conversation to a minimum until we reach the destination."

"Okay."

Milia's voice, which had only moments ago been easygoing and joking, now carried a faint tension. The clients had completely handed control over to the hired party.

'This is actually easier.'

Elbridge would stop from time to time and gauge the others' position from the faint footsteps drifting in from far away.

"This way."

As he moved, he kept thinking.

'Demonic beasts tend to appear in large numbers around places where demons exist. Finding three rats that had only just started to mutate all at once is solid proof that there's a demon nearby.'

'Since ancient times, sealing demons has always been the mages' job. Did the Central Magic Tower seal the demon on its own?'

'There's no chance this has nothing to do with the Master of the Central Magic Tower. Did the Master secretly seal the demon to keep people in the center from panicking? Are the mages guarding the seal?'

It was a plausible guess. But until he confirmed it himself, he couldn't relax.

A fight with a demon often didn't end in a single blow, so there was a good chance the standoff was still dragging on.

'If a demon appeared beneath the Magic Tower and the tower collapsed because of it... the casualties would be terrible.'

As Elbridge kept thinking, he stopped at an intersection.

Then he leaned out slightly and looked left. Two young mages were scanning the area with tense expressions.

"Milia-ssi. Please cast a haste spell."

"Okay."

Milia murmured softly and waved her staff. Then the mana flowing from her staff headed toward Elbridge.

The divinity inside Elbridge's body instinctively tried to push Milia's mana away. But Elbridge skillfully controlled his divinity and accepted it.

A sensation he hadn't felt in a long time.

Elbridge looked back and checked the others' breathing. It was no different from usual. That meant...

'With Milia's skill, thought acceleration isn't possible yet.'

But this was enough.

Elbridge took a moment to steady his breathing.

Then,

he kicked off the ground hard and charged across the intersection.

Thud-

His body as a paladin already exceeded human limits, and now magic had added to that.

There was no way mages without combat experience could react to Elbridge's ambush.

"Ah..."

Before the two mages even finished seeing Elbridge's face, his figure brushed past them. The two mages fainted and slowly collapsed.

Then Elbridge threw open the door behind them.

Michel and Milia rushed out, full of excitement.

"Come on, hurry!"

But Marcus and Patrick reacted differently.

Patrick watched Elbridge with a serious expression, while Marcus bluntly questioned him.

"El. If we go in now, won't we just get surrounded? If we get surrounded, I don't think it'll end well."

"That is true."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"We just need to stay hidden a little longer."

The five of them concealed themselves in the darkness and waited quietly.

Then, after a short while,

the mages who had come out to check the sewer after hearing the noise returned.

And they found the two unconscious mages and the wide-open door.

"An intruder knocked out Henry and Giovanni!"

"Paul! Go inside and tell everyone! The rest of you, slowly move deeper in while checking the places the intruder might be hiding!"

Starting from the entrance, the mages searched every corner around them and disappeared deeper inside.

And Elbridge's group, still hidden in the dark, watched them.

Elbridge quietly suggested, "Now we just need to follow them while keeping a proper distance."

That was the surest way to avoid the mages' search and head straight for the most important place.

Marcus whispered to Elbridge with a suspicious look.

"...Sir Elbridge. What exactly were you before?"

Elbridge said proudly, "There were times when supplies ran low."

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